Apple sued for patent infringement on click wheel

Touch sensor chip company Quantum Research Group is suing Apple over …

UK-based Quantum Research Group has filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. over patent infringement of the company's capacitive sensing technology. The touch sensor chip company says that Apple's iPod makes use of the technology via the iPod's now-famous click wheel. "Some are based on Cypress' PSoC chip and used in a way we believe infringes our patent," CEO Hal Philipp toldElectronics Weekly.

Interestingly, the suit was actually filed just over a year ago in December of 2005 but only came to public light recently when Apple revealed that it had filed an answer to the suit. Apple's response was, of course, that they did not infringe on any patents. In addition to the company's formal denial of all allegations, it also filed a countersuit against Quantum for noninfringement.

Philipp told EW that although there's been talk of a settlement, he believes that the case will go to trial sometime in 2007. However, if Apple's track record is any indication of how the company will handle the suit, it seems likely that Apple will continue to hold out until the last minute and then settle. Apple Corps sued Apple, Inc. (then, Apple Computer) after the launch of the iTunes Music Store in 2003 over "differing interpretations" of their 1991 agreement, but came to a settlement in 2004. In the fall of 2005, Creative accused Apple of patent infringement over Creative's user interface, and the companies reached a settlement a year later with Apple paying $100 million to Creative to license the UI. If Quantum and Apple fail to come to a settlement agreement, it would be one of the rare instances where a case involving Apple actually goes to trial.